Orange and Navy (The Many Colours of Life and Death AU)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Denmark-Norway placed a disguise upon himself, despite the fact that literally everyone knew who he was already. It still helped him feel more comfortable. Or maybe not. It probably looked weird.

Shut up, he told himself as a column of ice nearly blasted his head off. He had to focus on his battle with the Roman Empire. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a blue, red and yellow flag. The colours were familiar, etched into his brain.

It's not real, he told himself, but the Byzantine Empire was far away from him, fighting his own battles. This was no illusion. Finally, he looked at Sweden-Norway. Her eyes were black and red, a soulless hole staring at him. Her eye patches were gone. Then her eyes flashed yellow.

I didn't bring her back to life, he thought, and now I have to fight her.

She attacked him, and he teleported behind her, glancing back at the Roman Empire. ROE watched with amusement.

I can't do this. I can't hurt her, Denmark-Norway thought, backing away.

"Don't worry about her." The Golden Horde blocked a shot from S-N that had been coming towards D-N, nodding at him. "Focus on the Roman Empire."

Thank you, he signed to her, turning his full attention to the man he wanted dead.

He mimicked the Indus River Valley Civilisation's power, knowing it wouldn't be very hard to die in this battle. As he clashed with the Roman Empire, he noticed his allies struggling against the Navy Alliance, ghosts, on top of their mind controlled friends. They were nearly evenly matched, but the addition of mind control made it equal. Plus, the Roman Empire was a formidable foe. They barely beat him with the ghosts on their side, let alone with the entire Navy Alliance against them.

This battle was not going to go well. Even if they won, countless would die. D-N was nearly certain someone had died already.

Focus on the battle, he groaned at himself as his head was nearly taken off completely by ROE. He ducked just in time and sent an attack of his own, made of fire. The Roman Empire cursed as he batted out the flames on his cape.

Then D-N found himself unable to move and quickly went into his mind. He panicked and sent attacks after ROE immediately. He needed to get out of his mind control before—

The scenery changed. The ground underneath him rumbled and cracked. He took flight, seeing cracks appearing on his body. Wounds in the real world. He wasn't going to survive.

He turned back to the Roman Empire and tried to stab him, but ROE ran away, deflecting each attack. D-N found it harder and harder to run... he wasn't... going to... make it...

He fell to the floor, gasping for air. He noticed that the cracks had stopped spreading. That was... good. Maybe the attacks had stopped. But if he couldn't get out of his mind control, he would succumb to his wounds. His immortality was likely gone. ROE had complete control over his powers.

He exited his mind to check the real world. There was a force field around him. He was blasting fire, water, darkness, ice, everything at the force field. It grew smaller around him, but did not disappear. Outside of it, the Dutch Empire was straining.

The Roman Empire was being attacked by the Golden Horde and Bulgaria, who were also being attacked by the ghosts of Belgium, Sweden-Norway and the Principality of Serbia.

He went back into the world of his mind, straining to get up. He had to end this. Or nobody would make it out alive.

He conjured an axe. But it popped out of his hands, disappearing into a cloud of dust. He tried again, but it simply faded. He looked up, meeting eyes with the Roman Empire. Then he looked away, letting out a deep breath.